Yesterday was a rest day. I rode only 4 km to the closest Irish pub, had a drink with cycling friends and returned home …somehow… luckily I didn’t had a GPS device with me, that would have shown some circles on a map.

We had some Guiness and a sort of semi-serious drinking. So naturally I woke-up late, needed to do some errants for the fanily and could only start a quarter to one, which is basically in the dusk during winter in Bremen. Being certain that I would not arrive back home during daylight hours, I fixed some lights on the bike and started in direction of the Weser barrage. The cloud-making facilities were pumping out clouds like it would be the last day on earth.

And the result was a weird mix of thick rainclouds, blue skies and some beams of sunlights making it through.

We all know that culture influences languages, Germans have words that hardly translate into other languages like „Weltschmerz“ or „Verschlimmbessern“; so do the Japanese with „binmyo“ or „mabui“ and also the English and Americans or the French. Now I have run out of languages I have any idea off. Douglas Adams wrote somewhere, that

„Eskimos had over two hundred different words for snow, without which their conversation would probably have got very monotonous. So they would distinguish between thin snow and thick snow, light snow and heavy snow, sludgy snow, brittle snow, snow that came in flurries, snow that came in drifts, snow that came in on the bottom of your neighbor’s boots all over your nice clean igloo floor, the snows of winter, the snows of spring, the snows you remember from your childhood that were so much better than any of your modern snow, fine snow, feathery snow, hill snow, valley snow, snow that falls in the morning, snow that falls at night, snow that falls all of a sudden just when you were going out fishing, and snow that despite all your efforts to train them, the huskies have pissed on.“

I wonder why in Bremen we do not have about 200 different words for „rain“ or „clouds“. It would make our conversations so much more interesting.

I continued along the Weser until I reach Riede and then I took a turn west in direction Okel. Although the weather is mostly dry this winter, the wind is very strong and almost always blowing from the West or the Southwest. I like riding out against the wind, for me it feels like winding up an old-fashioned toy. It is slow and takes some efforts on the one hand, but on the other hand it feels also like storing energy, like a wind-up toy car that is ready to release its power at any given time on the way back home. I was now on the same roads as with Jörg and Olli some days ago. I hesitated for a moment to go all the way South towards Bruchhausen-Vilsen and get some strawberry cake at the bakery with the tatooed lady; but as darkness approached fast I decided to ride towards Syke, then crossed the B6 and continued to Nordwohlde. There were almost no cars on the roads and no people to be seen today. Beautiful, a rarely experienced tranquility was in the air today. Many cars were parked in front of the local restaurant or pub in the small villages, so I guess that families and couples decided to go out for lunch after all the preps with Christmas.

My original objective for the day was Harpstedt but I didn’t felt like riding down to Bassum on the rather ugly B51 (one worse than B52) and so I just headed straight on. I came now on a „rindo-like“ road (rindo: jap. forrest road, off limit for public traffic) that led me somewhere, I assuming it would be Harpstedt.

Hm, or perhaps not. The road continued forever and was going rather in the general direction of Bremen. I was suddenly then on the Bremen-Osnabrück cycling road. I heard about that one, basically to the effect that it is hardly approriate for roads bikes; but the stretch I was on was OK and continued to an old sand excavation site and then further on to Heiligenrode.

Look mum, no hands!

With a strong tailwind I flew home now but decided to make a small detour to Delmenhorst. There was only an ugly, big road and after the experience silence before it was rather nasty. There is nothing charming in Delmenhorst except Karin and Torsten. Oh, and perhaps the blond girl that Torsten saw one day was from Delmenhorst as well. Luckily there were some gas stations open so I could refuel and take a look at my now rather really, really dirty bike.

So far, so good. Everything is working fine. I am really glad that I tuned the gears before starting the Festive500, shifting is now smooth again. I am afraid although that my white Tacx derailleur sprockets are not that white any more. I need to check, but it is hard to see with all the dirt. From Delmenhorst I took the old road through Kattenturm and the GVZ and then I was back at the main station. Soon the Bremen Sixdays will start again.

The sport program looks all right, but the music program includes everything which makes one running away as quick as possible. Here are some examples to let you experience the full impact of German „Schlager music“ presented at the Six Days.

This seems to be harder to take than riding for example 500 km between Christmas and New Year’s eve. Last year was equally worse. I saw my old teenage idol Suzi Quatro on stage.

Actually, she has changed a bit, just like me, compared to her heydays during the Seventies.

But this is still not the worse. Does anybody remember Beatrice Dalle, of „Betty Blue: 37.2 degrees in the shade“ fame?

Glad you could resist. This brings me to another story, which will be the last one for today. You all probably heard of the famous tale of the brother Grimm about the Town musicians of Bremen. They are on display close to the market place and we can see four animals standing on each other, with the donkey at the bottom, followed by the dog, the cat and the rooster. Right, isn’t that strange? I mean, these four animals are not well known for exceling in any kind of music. A donkey musician? You must be kidding? It is a not well known fact, that in the beginning the town musicians had five members, including an elephant. Actually the elephant was the most sophisticated musician in the band and he was as skilfull as Miles Davis playing the trumpet when blowing his beak. That was precisely the reason why the donkey and the other untalented animals hated him and threw him out of the band. Luckily the good people of Bremen haven’t forgotten about the elephant and errected a nice monument close to the station.

This is one of my favourite places in Bremen. Actually the monument is much bigger than the one of the town musicians which should bring things into perspective.

In the end I extended my loop into the Blockland and was home after some 90 km. More than 451 km done, 49 more to go.